Sweden expresses willingness to lead NATO forces in Finland

• Finland has requested Sweden to manage the force.
• The process is still in an “early stage” and details will be worked out within NATO.
• NATO currently has eight forward presences in Eastern Europe.

On Monday, Sweden announced its readiness to manage a future NATO land force in neighboring Finland, which shares a border with Russia. The two Nordic nations, having dropped decades of military non-alignment, applied for NATO membership following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Finland became a NATO member in 2023, and Sweden joined this year. In July, NATO announced plans to develop a Forward Land Forces (FLF) presence in Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border with Russia.

“This kind of military presence in a NATO country requires a framework nation which plays an important role in the implementation of the concept,” Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen told a press conference.

The countries said that Finland had requested Sweden to manage the force.

“The Swedish government has the ambition to take the role as a framework nation for a forward land force in Finland,” Hakkanen’s Swedish counterpart Pal Jonson told reporters.

Jonson emphasized that the process was still in an “early stage” and that details would be worked out within NATO. He also noted that further consultations with the Swedish parliament would occur. Hakkanen added that planning with other NATO members would clarify the details about the force, including the number of troops and their exact location, which have not yet been decided.

NATO reports that it currently has eight forward presences, or “multinational battlegroups,” in Eastern Europe, located in Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.

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